My Jade, Fred

For the last few years, every summer my husband swears I am going to kill my Jade Plant. Maybe it’s because when we bought two Christmas Cacti and he cared for one which is still living (and preparing to bloom), I was in charge of the second one, which has long since passed.

But we found this Jade at a garage sale a few years ago and I had to have it. They grow slow and I could tell by it’s size that it had survived many years already.  The Marshfield Mall has one that's over 100 years old, I can't remember its name though.

Every summer I move the Jade outside and often I forget where to place it and some of the leaves get burned by the sun’s rays before I realize it needs more shade. But here it is, in all its glory at the end of this summer. It survived another year and has a lot of new growth. I may be able to keep it alive for many years after all.

Every time I look at it I think of Fred (a Jade plant) in the book, By the Light of the Moon by Dean Koontz. I thought of my Jade the entire time I was reading the book to Dennis. Maybe someday I will strap my ‘Fred’ into the car seat and go on some travels.

Sluicing Loquaciously

I have a couple of favorite words, good thing, since that’s what Mothers or Brothers wants to know.

I love Loquacious [loh-kwey-shuhs], it just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? It means ‘talking or tending to talk much or freely; talkative; chattering; babbling; garrulous; characterized by excessive talk; wordy’ In fact, I love the word so much it is part of Brodi’s registered name, Loquacious Lacroix [la crwa]. I like Lacroix too, it’s from that old vampire show Forever Knight, and it’s French meaning ‘the cross’

I have come to love the word sluice [sloos] in all of its variations. I blame Koontz for that. So many things sluice in his books and it’s become a game between my husband and I to guess which page it will be on before we start reading one of his novels. When the word never shows up we are very disappointed.

You probably wonder why I showed you airplanes today, they aren’t loquacious or sluicing, but they were pretty scary to watch. Can you tell how close they came to the power lines and each other?

Oh I also like my little made up word of slooshy - I tried to teach it to our French friend but he acted so serious while trying to learn it I fessed up. :)